Archbishop Nienstedt to return to ministry.

Grant Gallicho March 12, 2014 - 4:41pm

Ramsey County prosecutors will not press charges[1] against Archbishop John Nienstedt of St. Paul and Minneapolis, who was accused[2] of inappropriately touching a minor during a 2009 confirmation group photo. In a memo[3] explaining the decision not to prosecute, assistant county attorney Richard Dusterhoft called allegation "unlikely." A boy who appeared in that photograph told his mother that Nienstedt had touched his rear end during the shoot. His mother mentioned it to a St. Paul-Minneapolis priest, who then reported it to the police. Officers interviewed Nienstedt twice, the boy twice, and everyone who appeared in the photo. None of them remembered seeing anyone being touched on the buttocks.

“This case was reviewed by an assistant county attorney with many years of experience prosecuting child sex-abuse cases,” Dusterhoft wrote. “It is that attorney’s experienced and considered opinion that based upon the evidence as presented by police this case could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt and should not be charged.”

Nienstedt removed himself from ministry soon after the archdiocese received the allegation in December; he will resume public ministry immediately.

More from MPR[4]. (More from me on the ongoing sexual-abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis here[5], here[6], here[7], and here[8].)